Saturday, 25 October 2014

Inner deck supports, two goes at a mast tabernacle, and battery tray

I haven't been able to spend terribly much time on the boat of late, on account of being away for work rather more than usual. Much of the time I have spent was wasted, building a tabernacle that I ended up chucking out. Here's the first go. I had it in mind that I'd run it down either side of the spine through the bridge between the centerboard case and front thwart.

The result looked really awful. The tabernacle looked very heavy and the spine rather light. It looked kinda perched there.

After spending some time in the moaning chair, I decided to beef up the spine, and mount a smaller tabernacle to the top of a wider, thicker bridge piece rather than the sides of the spine. So I got the saw and chisel out and removed the reinforcing either side of the spine, then replaced it with a larger piece. I also put a second reinforcing piece under a wider bridge, horizontally. This makes the bridge about 25mm thick rather than 6mm, and mostly solid Tassie oak, sitting on a thick reinforced spine.

The tabernacle is made from Jarrah, with 16mm thick side plates and a solid wedge shaped piece between them. I bored an 18mm dia hole for the mast pivot bushings. I'll turn up some bushings to go in there and use a 12mm bronze shaft for the mast pivot. I'm waiting on some 12ga bronze screws to screw the base of the tabernacle down to the bridge piece. I'll attach the centerboard lifting block to the back of the tabernacle once it's installed.

I'm done with steaming for now, having steamed the inner deck supports. I also steamed a thinner piece of Tassie oak with which to form the back of the fo'c's'le. Nice gradual curves. When you sit on the forward thwart facing aft, the curved piece should make a nice comfy back rest.

To further procrastinate before starting planking, I knocked together a battery tray, which goes in the front thwart. This accepts a 20AH 12V sealed lead acid battery, which should be plenty to power a fixed VHF radio plus AIS transponder. I've put a slot in the tray for a tie-down strap, which will affix to the bulkhead above the battery. That way the battery will stay put even if the boat is capsized.